Constructive criticism and found delights

Let's face it - you love your family, but that's today, before you see them. By Boxing Day, you're going to want to curl up in the fetal position as your uncle yammers on about the Cleveland Browns. As long as you're hiding out in the basement, or drinking alone at the depressing corner bar, you might as well do something productive. Here's a special "must read" list of books, blogs, and presentations while you stew about in the hellhole your parents call home.

Steve Blank - the granddaddy of them all. Steve coined the term "customer development" as a parallel process to product development. Steve's blog is fascinating (the man has done some very interesting stuff), but the must-read is his book, Four Steps to the Epiphany. In particular, it specifically talks about how to work when you're disrupting an existing market versus when you're building a new market for your product. You have to read Four Steps first.

Eric Ries - the new hotness. Eric took Steve Blank's class, learned about customer development and had the insight to pair the customer development process with extreme programming to create a continuous improvement/feedback loop. Eric coined this process "Lean Startup". Eric's blog is great, but he has a MVP beta of his posts in an e-book, which may be easier to read. You should buy it now, since Lulu might take a while to ship.

Sean Ellis - the Glengarry leads guy. You've built it; now what? Sean only works with companies that have raised venture money and already achieved product/market balance (see why I don't call it product/market fit). You don't even have a product yet. Why is he a must read? Because his approach to measuring product/market balance is better than anyone else's. His startup pyramid tells you each necessary step before you can turn on the growth spigot. Sean's blog is updated less frequently, but every post is great.

Andrew Chen - the savant. Andrew's spent a lot of time thinking about viral loops. Virality isn't something that just happens to great products - although that does happen from time to time - virality is something that can be baked into your product's DNA. Andrew's blog is full of posts that go into viral loops in detail, and it's much easier to read now that he made a special categorized list of posts for you. You can't possibly read all of this before you come home, so I'll stop there.